In any IBM Rational ClearCase environment that uses Microsoft Windows,
ClearCase requires a Windows user account to start the ClearCase Atria
Location Broker Daemon (ALBD) service. This article explains one way of
changing the ALBD password, which you typically must do frequently for
security.

IBM Rational Developer for System z code review application for z/OS has
a new version. This tutorial explores three new features that add flexibility
and reduce the number of artifacts to export from the Rational Developer for
System z client.

This article presents a process for setting up build-time JPA
enhancement in IBM® Rational® development products, by
using only the libraries provided by IBM WebSphere® Application
Server. Build time enhancement can reduce start-up times and provide seamless
support for transferring JPA entities between JPA applications and non-JPA
clients.

Many teams are thriving on agile practices
including the highly effective scrum methodology. Implementing scrum in
large scale distributed organizations can be challenging. This article
suggests practical strategies for managing scrum at scale.

The EclEmma Rational Team Concert integration helps you detect defects
in earlier phases of the software development cycle. Learn about some of the
features added to the EclEmma and IBM Rational Team Concert integration to help you gradually increase the level of code coverage.

IBM Rational ClearCase provides robust support for all four dimensions
of computer security: authentication, authorization, encryption, and
event-logging. In this overview of security features, learn about deploying
software configuration management.

Plan and execute a migration project from IBM Rational
DOORS to IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation. This article provides a
list of migration terms and definitions (as opposed to interchange) and
describes the phases and tasks involved when moving active data into a
Collaborative Lifecycle Management environment.

My editor-in-chief tasked me with choosing my top three articles
published in 2015. It was hard to choose my favorites, but here they are. Do you have a favorite developerWorks Rational article that didn't make my list? Feel free to add a link to the comments and share the content you found helpful.

Learn techniques to handle basic system interruptions and exceptions. These
interruptions and exceptions can happen on zOS when using zOS assembler services while programming
with Metal C, and language-specific libraries are not available to assist. Learn to utilize assembler service macros provided by zOS to create low-level exception handling routines to change the program's reaction to exceptions and interruptions. A sample program is provided to demonstrate how to use the macro with a user-defined exception handling routine.

There are two ways to build a zOS XLC/C++ application that contains
embedded assembly instructions. Explore the major differences and the
operations that can be performed using these two methods. See samples of
compiling, linking, and running a program including inline assembly with these
two methods. Also included are examples of how to search for user defined and
system macros using the ASMLIB compiler option.

Get hands-on experience with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation and the configuration management capabilities it supports. Access Rational DOORS Next Generation online through a sandbox on Jazz.net to work through a set of exercises.

Learn about the AutoSIMD optimization introduced in the z/OS V2R2 XL
C/C++ compiler. AutoSIMD transforms user source code into SIMD code, which
runs on the new SIMD unit in z13 hardware for faster data processing. This
optimization is useful for C and C++ analytics workloads which, when compiled with
the V2R2 compiler, can generate SIMD code for efficient execution.

This article describes how to use XL C/C++ to take advantage of architecture sections and run-time architecture built-in functions to generate code for multiple architectures in a single compile unit. This feature is introduced in the XL C/C++ V2R1M1 and XL C/C++V2R2 Compilers.

If you have not heard about the cloud revolution in IT, you were probably living in a cave or on another planet for the past 3 years. The cloud is everywhere, and it drastically changes the way information is stored and shared. Cloud computing forces organizations to apply new business models, and teams have to re-invent the way they develop and deliver applications. In this article, I present ten reasons why you should consider IBM Bluemix if you plan to create and deploy cloud applications. With extensive support for mobile and web applications, Bluemix provides all the services you need to your develop your next brilliant idea.

This article elaborates the importance of good estimation practices. It shows and categorizes a set of estimation techniques. It provides a high level comparison between Agile and conventional techniques and finally recommends some general estimation tips. Estimation can be an efficient practice with better awareness and collaboration.

Learn how to design and implement the upgrade process in Software as a Service multitenancy environments. This necessary step updates each customer environment independently from the environments that reside on the same machine.

This article demonstrates how to use the new features in IBM Rational
Test Workbench to perform two important aspects of performance testing on
mobile apps: Response time measurements and Resource monitoring.

This article describes how to use IBM UrbanCode Deploy to define a DevOps deployment solution for IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation (formerly Worklight) mobile artifacts. By defining a deployment using UrbanCode Deploy with the IBM MobileFirst Platform plugin, mobile teams can respond to feedback faster and have a repeatable process with reduced risk.

This article provides a detailed analysis about
the new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) built-in functions provided by IBM XL compilers. It explores the code that
the compilers generate to demonstrate the performance gained by using the built-in
functions. This is critical for high-performance AES applications, especially when many
of them cannot be parallelized due to the nature of operation modes, such as chaining
mode [for example, cipher block chaining (CBC) and propagating cipher block chaining
(PCBC)] or feedback mode [cipher feedback (CFB) and output feedback (OFB)]. If you are
a software engineer who is interested in achieving high performance for applications on
IBM POWER8 processors, this article is for you.

LABCAR-AUTOMATION (LCA) is widely used in the automotive industry to run automated tests on hardware to ensure high levels of quality in safety-critical areas. Find out how to use LCA within Rational Quality Manager to ensure traceability, governance, and improved quality.

The IBM Rational ClearCase environment is sensitive to any hostname
changes on the system where the application is hosted. This article provides
the steps to make the task easier for Rational ClearCase
administrators.

The article provides you with knowledge about Jenkins and shows you how
to set up the continuous delivery framework with Jenkins. The framework can
build and scan source code, install the successful build, run tests and send
results automatically.

In this three-part tutorial, learn how to use IBM Rational Application Developer and IBM Bluemix to rapidly build and host a multi-tier Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) app. Find out how you can save time in each stage: creating the data model and database, generating the data access code using the Java Persistence API (JPA), writing the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) and web services, and using Dojo to create a rich web UI for viewing and modifying the data. When the application is complete, you'll deploy it to IBM Bluemix, the IBM Platform as a Service (PaaS).

In this three-part tutorial, learn how to use IBM Rational Application Developer and IBM Bluemix to rapidly build and host a multi-tier Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) app. Find out how you can save time in each stage: creating the data model and database, generating the data access code using the Java Persistence API (JPA), writing the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) and web services, and using Dojo to create a rich web UI for viewing and modifying the data. When the application is complete, you'll deploy it to IBM Bluemix, the IBM Platform as a Service (PaaS).

In this three-part tutorial, learn how to use IBM Rational Application Developer and IBM Bluemix to rapidly build and host a multi-tier Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) app. Find out how you can save time in each stage: creating the data model and database, generating the data access code using the Java Persistence API (JPA), writing the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) and web services, and using Dojo to create a rich web UI for viewing and modifying the data. When the application is complete, you'll deploy it to IBM Bluemix, the IBM Platform as a Service (PaaS).

This article shows how to apply Model Driven Architecture principles to accelerate the design and development of Java Enterprise Applications that use mainstream technology, such as Java Persistence API, Enterprise Java Beans and Java API for RESTful Web Services. It investigates each step of the model-driven development process from the initial domain design to the generation of EJB 3.0 and JAX-RS design and implementations.

Learn how to create a continuous delivery process using IBM Rational
Team Concert and IBM UrbanCode Deploy. You will learn how to extend an
existing build processor to create a new build process from scratch that will
seamlessly integrate the products to provide a flow of content in a highly
traceable manner.

This article discusses the integration of quality assurance tools FindBugs, CheckStyle and Cobertura with IBM Rational Team Concert. This integration reduces defect generation when compiling and building an application. It improves the code quality of the application while performing the day-to-day build job. This technique can be used cross-platform with products and applications built on Java technology.

This article is a complete guide to creating a build participant plugin
that optimizes continuous delivery processes for Jazz software. This plugin
saved our build team at least 1 man day every 2 weeks and improved the
reliability of deployments during code promotion.

Non-disruptive change is not the absence of change, but the introduction of change without an interruption of service. This article explores the imperatives and challenges associated with non-disruptive change and provides a definition and framework for making non-disruptive change a reality in today's Always On world.

Rapid integration testing is a key to delivering frequent, high quality software. But, environment availability is often a limiting factor. This article reviews several strategies to improve environment availability as well as when to use each strategy.

Using source control, developers can more easily manage source code,
documents, and other artifacts that a software development team creates. By
using an automated tool -- in this case, the agile project management Rational
Team Concert -- you make it easier to manage these change in a development
project.

Developers can learn how to become change and configuration management
experts by understanding how work items function. By using an automated tool
-- in this case, the agile project management Rational Team Concert -- you
make it easier to manage change in a software development project.

Developers can learn how to become software test management experts by
understanding how the testing effort process works in a software development
project. By using an automated tool -- in this case, Rational Quality Manager
-- you make it easier to plan, develop, and manage testing in a software
development project.

Developers can learn how to become software testing experts by
understanding how the testing effort process works in a software development
project. By using an automated tool -- in this case, Rational Quality Manager
-- you make it easier to plan, develop, and manage testing in a software
development project.

One of the latest features of IBM Rational Application Developer V9.1 is the ability to create and deploy Web Application Bridge (WAB) filters based on a predefined template. This article shows the tooling capabilities available to create and deploy WAB filters. It includes an example to show how to use WAB filters created in IBM Rational Application Developer.

BPMN and SoaML are two recent standards adopted by OMG. There is significant overlap between these standards, with each providing a particular emphasis on service and process modeling. This article looks at how to uses their unique features together.

This article, part 2 of a 3 part series, explores the concepts that guide the integration of BPMN and SoaML. The concepts include how each language approaches encapsulation, contracts (or interfaces), structure and behavior.

In current product development processes, various methodologies and supporting software suites are used for system level analysis and multi-physics simulation analysis. These are two critical parts of a continuous engineering methodology that have been carried out in silos by separate teams with minimal interaction. This article explores whether they should be connected or not.

If software engineering was like civil engineering, then mobile apps would be as rock solid as the average modern bridge. However, software engineering is a very different discipline - and a much younger one - than civil engineering. We have best practices and design patterns to help us write excellent software, but it is almost impossible to guarantee a piece of software will never crash. This is an even bigger challenge in today's mobile apps which, thanks to very short release cycles, do not enjoy as much quality assurance as do other kinds of software. In this article, you will understand how the automated crash reporting feature of IBM Mobile Quality Assurance can make your mobile app as strong as a bridge.

By using an automated tool to facilitate development code testing (in
this case, Rational Application Developer for WebSphere), which uses the
Eclipse-based Probekit framework of Java code fragments that can be inserted
into a program to provide information as the program runs, you make it easier
to obtain vital runtime data on your code component.

The goal of web UI testing is to detect functional problems with a
website or a web application on your desktop. The Web UI extension of Rational
Test Workbench Eclipse Client supports automated testing of the user interface
of web applications.

By using an automated tool to facilitate tracing project requirements
(in this case, Rational DOORS Next Generation), you can take charge and
make managing project requirements a smooth, continuous process.

An important initial task to successfully manage requirements in a
development project includes linking requirements and artifacts. Choosing the
correct link type is key. Learn about links types in a typical RM tool such as
Rational DOORS Next Generation. You can also experiment with the DOORSng tool
in a 60-day free trial.

When you use an automated tool to facilitate tracking dependencies between
requirements and artifacts (in this case, Rational Application Developer for
WebSphere Software), you can obtain a project-wide omniscient view of all
dependency links, and that's a good thing.

In this article you will learn how to deploy, configure and use the Blueworks Live OSLC adapter, so that you can link project artifacts in to the business processes documented in Blueworks Live. By deploying this adapter your development teams can easily find the related business process, and thus build a better understanding of the requirements. In turn they're enabled to build better software that supports the business.

Strategic reuse helps you gain efficiencies across the entire product
development lifecycle. The IBM® Rational® solution for systems and software
engineering − the SSE platform − facilitates strategic reuse in large-scale
product line development. This can be accomplished by reusing components,
applying proper change management across different variants, and leveraging
automation machinery to control reuse and establish a robust variant control
process.

In this article, you will learn how to enable performance measurement with a functional test of a mobile application under test on IBM Rational Test Workbench. You'll also learn how to run and view the same results from a connected IBM Rational Quality Manager.

This article shows you how to maintain a single Jazz Team Server for multiple instances of CLM application and how to successfully configure a single Reporting server with Jazz namespace authentication for restricted report access.

Quality assurance and testing requires collaboration between many key
stakeholders, because of this the DevOps principles of communication and
collaboration are beneficial. This article explains how to use DevOps to drive
quality assurance and testing and shows you service virtualization testing in
practice.

Learn how to make necessary changes on IBM Rational ClearCase server to
move between Windows domains without re-installing the products. IBM Rational
ClearCase is designed to work with the Windows Active Directory system, in
which deployment of servers are restricted by the domain system. For example,
to move an existing server from one domain to another, users are required to
reinstall the products IBM Rational ClearCase, IBM WebSphere Application
Server, and IBM HTTP Server. This article describes a simpler
method.

IBM® Rational Team Concert™ can help software development teams store and organize information, including work plans, tasks, builds, tests and source code / other files. IBM® Rational Team Concert can also be customized to align with the processes and data gathering requirements of a project team. This article demonstrates how to add a custom attribute to a work item that performs some calculations (through JavaScript), based on the values of one or more attributes from the same work item.

Combine IBM Rational Performance Tester with the significant
computing resources in IBM SoftLayer to simulate real world use of
your application by geographically distributed virtual users.
By using Rational Performance Tester with SoftLayer, you can achieve highly
scalable load testing at reduced cost. This article gives technical users
practical guidance and examples for using SoftLayer with Rational Performance
Tester.

Regulated environments need audit trails that document the time each artifact was tested, the name of the tester, and the results of the test. Regulated environments also require a review approval process that supports electronic signatures. Learn how to use IBM® Rational® Quality Manager to create and maintain a high-quality audit trail.

In this article you will learn how IBM Mobile Quality Assurance was used
to develop the Ei! Treinador (Portuguese for "Hey Coach!") mobile application.
Created for the VIP fans at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this app enabled
fans to see sentiment analysis aggregated from social media. You will learn
how IBM Mobile Quality Assurance was installed and configured for the
application and how it was used to distribute the application to testers and
stakeholders. Mobile Quality Assurance was used in all phases of the
development cycle, from internal testing to production usage. This article
covers both the pre-production and production steps of IBM Mobile Quality
Assurance.

In model-driven development and formal specification of software systems, the quality feedback mechanism is reinforced by the more extensive validation of early lifecycle representations of the system. It is worth replacing a well-understood and trusted validation and verification model based on hand-crafted requirements, code, simulation, and test with a formal requirements engineering approach.

In this article, learn how to bridge the gap between native and web programming models for mobile development using IBM Rational Application Developer v9.1. Rational Application Developer makes it possible to rapidly develop mobile web applications that are capable of integrating with native controls on devices such as the camera, accelerometer, or geolocation. Learn how to apply tools that accelerate development and reduce time-to-market.

This tutorial introduces IBM® Rational® DOORS® Next Generation and
describes how to use it to collaborate with a team as you capture, elaborate,
and trace requirements across the development lifecycle. Rational DOORS Next
Generation supports teams to realize the fundamental principle of requirements
management across the lifecycle of a project. These areas of the product are
explained: collaboration, organization, granularity of information,
attributes, reporting, tracking, and security. This tutorial includes
exercises that require installation and setup. For more information, see
"Exercise environment setup" that supports this tutorial.

The Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) is a
set of seamlessly integrated applications that work together as one platform
for managing the complete lifecycle of your development projects. The
application and lifecycle data that your teams create collaboratively for
their projects is provided to you for reporting by CLM in a data warehouse.
This article introduces an all new set of capabilities and reports that allow
you to set-up dashboards that show you the status of your entire project
portfolio, aggregating data cross-applications, cross-projects, and even
cross-timelines.

If you work with entity designs and modeling, you are familiar with the Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) cycle error that is a result of bidirectional relationships. This article gives methods to resolve the JAXB cycle error. It includes benefits, shortfalls, and implementation details for each method. It offers a workable solution that addresses persistence and serialization of the data.

This is the second article in a five-part series on IBM's commercial
solution for service-oriented systems design and development. This article
describes IBM's commercially available best practices – Rational SOMA -- for
identifying, specifying, and realizing services. It describes both the method
– which is tool-agnostic – and specific guidance that is included with
Rational SOMA for using Rational Software Architect for WebSphere Software to
perform the steps of the method.

BPMN and SoaML are two recent standards adopted by OMG. The standards overlap significantly, but each provides a particular emphasis on service and process modeling. This article describes how to use their unique features together.

Defects can be created automatically from an automation playback report.
The list of failures from the automated test cases is filtered and using a
small Selenium script or a java program (using RTC APIs), defects are created
in IBM Rational Team Concert for all valid failures. The data for the defect
is obtained from the failure reports (or any other data source), which also
contain screen captures and a stack trace to give more precise information to
the development team. You can integrate this automated process for creating
defects from automation failures with automated deployment and
testing.

Automated testing is an important piece of the DevOps continuous
delivery pipeline. It's easy enough to write automation test scripts and have
them be triggered after a build is installed. It is more difficult to maintain
a group of tests to run, the machines to run them on, and a history of the
test results. This set of tasks can be daunting if you are using plain ANT and
properties files to maintain the inventory.

This article describes the detailed steps to configure code complexity
and code coverage analysis tools for IBM System Planning Tool. This article
can be used as a reference to set up the code complexity analysis
configuration and code coverage configuration for any development project.
These tools help improve the quality and performance of the code.

This article is a guide for testers who need to simulate highly complex
workloads without the help of a performance test tool. Learn how to track and
detect incorrect or null data issues related to runtime data parameterization.
Apply advanced configuration mechanisms in IBM Rational Performance Tester to
run performance tests for a large volume of users and throughput.

This article describes how to get started using DevOps Services
(JazzHub) to collaborate with others to plan, track, develop, and deploy
software in the cloud. Using a sample application, learn how to develop on
DevOps Services and deploy on IBM Bluemix.

This article describes how to use the code review application for IBM z/OS, introduced in IBM Rational Developer for System z version 9.0. With this application, you can run a software analysis code review directly on the z/OS operating system. Learn how to analyze COBOL and PL/I source using the code review application on z/OS.

Producing IT software solutions fast enough to meet operational demands has become
increasingly challenging for technology-rich businesses. The process is labor intensive and
requires iterative procedures as well as 24x7 attentiveness to integrating, compiling, and
testing code. At first glance, throwing additional resources at the problem seems the logical
response, but a better solution is to develop software applications more rapidly using a
framework that is resilient enough to withstand mass-production automations. DevOps
offers such a framework, and coupled with rapid application development, businesses can
perform fast-paced prototyping, testing, and delivery while maintaining high quality
standards.

Learn how to model and automate the additional storage needs of an
application using IBM Deployment Planning and Automation for the Cloud 2.1.0.
This freely downloadable accelerator installs on top of and integrates
capabilities in IBM Rational Software Architect, IBM Rational Automation
Framework, and IBM Tivoli Service Automation Manager. In this article, you
can discover how to use this tool to specify custom storage requirements for
application components in virtual images through a deployment topology model
and use the information to generate deployment automation artifacts that
provision the storage elements and attach them to virtual machines in the cloud.

IBM Enterprise COBOL V5.1 was released in 2013. It provides significant
performance improvement to COBOL applications. This article focuses on changes
that you need to be aware of as you prepare for the upgrade. It includes an
overview of improvements in the modernized COBOL compiler.

Learn how to migrate source code stored in an AccuRev repository to
IBM Rational Team Concert by using one of two approaches:
Migrate the source code without history or migrate the source code with
history. If you use AccuRev and need to migrate code to Rational Team Concert,
these migration tips can help.

Part 1 of this three-part article series guides you through best practices for
developing tests using Rational Performance Tester and how to implement common scenarios
for IBM WebSphere Commerce. Rational Performance Tester is a tool that can simulate
e-commerce workloads to help measure application performance and identify bottlenecks.
Test design approaches and problem determination are described.